Mr. Speaker, the Bloc Quebecois refuses to support second reading of Bill C-22, an Act respecting certain agreements concerning the redevelopment and operation of Terminals 1 and 2 at Lester B. Pearson International Airport, in Toronto. The principle behind the bill is flawed, because it does not include whatever measures need to be taken to make the work done by lobbyists more transparent.
What we have to expose here is the questionable ways some of the political parties are financed. Except for the Bloc Quebecois and the Parti Quebecois in Quebec, all individuals and corporations can currently support political parties.
We, in the Bloc Quebecois, are proud, because we are the only ones who can claim that all of our financial supporters are individuals. By relying on $5, $10, $20 or sometimes higher donations, when we got lucky, we collected the money we needed to be elected to this House. You have to understand that it is not illegal to get financial support from big corporations and even mega-corporations, it is just dangerous. It is so dangerous in fact that, since April 26, this is all we have been dealing with, this contract for the privatization of the Pearson Airport in Toronto. This is a fine example of the secret power lobbyists have. Thanks to what? Mainly the financing of old political parties. As the old saying, which still holds true after all these years, goes: "Never bite the hand that feeds you".
That saying applies to all members of this House, including members of the Bloc. However, with a funding arrangement like the one our party has, we could never propose transactions such as the Pearson deal. Why? Because the hand that feeds us is not the hand of businesses seeking ever higher financial summits, fearing neither clouds nor turbulence. The hand that feeds us is that of people who work hard to earn their salary, of unemployed people who are constantly looking for jobs, of senior citizens who want to be sure that their old age pension will not be cut and also of people who stay at home to take care of their children.
The Toronto Pearson airport privatization project puts the government in what I would call a dangerous position. When I talk about political party financing, I relate that to Pearson Airport and also to the Moisie military base in my riding. Six years ago, in the riding I represent, we experienced a similar situation which caused quite a stir in this normally quiet area. Of course, it was on a smaller scale, but we can see that nothing has changed.
To give you a brief history of what happened then, I will take you back to 1985, when the government of the day had to close the military base in Moisie. That closure was very hard on the
local economy because it meant the loss of over 200 military jobs and of over 40 civilian jobs.
The town of Moisie, a small community near Sept-Îles, with about 1,200 residents at the time, saw its budget cut by 30 per cent, which is enormous for a small community. That represented a loss of several millions of dollars for the regional economy.
In early 1986, the Department of Public Works called for tenders to dispose of the CFB Moisie as well as seven or eight other bases at the same time. So representatives of the town of Moisie and of Public Works Canada sat down together to set certain criteria. I will list a few of them that had priority, in the opinion of the town of Moisie.
Job creation was important for us. It was also important to make sure that the company was financially sound, since a military base is more or less like a small town. It has absolutely everything that one could find in any town: bowling alleys, swimming pools, streets, water and sewer systems, churches, schools, everything. So it takes a lot of money to buy it and a lot of money for maintenance. For us, it was important to have a local developer. And it was important that the project help offset a long-term loss of earnings for the regional economy.
In the winter of 1987, we finally got down to two developers who were bidding more or less the same amounts of money, but it was important for us that the spin-offs in the region be as interesting as possible. So, the town of Moisie was naturally in favour of a local developer, whereas the government was in favour of a developer from elsewhere, described by the office of the then Prime Minister, who happened to be the member of Parliament for the riding, as a good friend of the party. Therefore there was a small struggle about that.
Of course, the town of Moisie did not wield as much power as the office of the Prime Minister. In the spring of 1987, negotiations came to a standstill. In the summer of 1987, the good friend of the party was forced upon the town of Moisie. That developer promised 35 permanent jobs and 15 seasonal jobs. What is the situation today, six years later? No permanent jobs and no seasonal jobs. However, 50 houses were sold for a net profit of more than one million dollars.
When we go through the data to find out why, at the time, the Prime Minister's Office and the government insisted so much for that person to acquire the military base site, we realize that, during the 1984 election, the developer had provided to the party's fund $1,500 directly and heaven knows how much indirectly. That is awful. That has to stop.
Quebec and Canada's taxpayers can no longer afford to favour to excess good friends of the party at the expense of regional economic development. With examples such as the Pearson contract in Toronto and the Moisie military base, it is easy to imagine how many such dubious transactions there must be, transactions which, instead of serving those who pay their taxes, shamefully favour those who, on the contrary, constantly try to avoid paying them.
Yes, the Pearson transaction must be denounced, but it is not enough for the government to pass a bill such as Bill C-22 to pretend that it is doing its job. Pontius Pilate also washed his hands of the matter. Mature and responsible people will see to it that a mechanism is put in place to ensure that the real leaders of the country are those who are democratically elected by the population, and not those who pull the strings of some elected officials that are too well placed.
The Bloc Quebecois says no. We want a royal commission to get to the bottom of this obscure matter. The Canadian people have the right to know all about the hidden side of that affair and the role that lobbyists played and continue to play with the government.